THEORIES CONCERNING AXIOMS. 



173 



sophers of the intuitive school, from 

 Descartes to Dr. Whewell ; but at 

 this point Mr. Spencer diverges from 

 them. For he does not, like them, 

 set up the test of inconceivability as 

 infallible. On the contrary, he holds 

 that it may be fallacious, not from 

 any fault in the test itself, but because 

 " men have mistaken for inconceivable 

 things some things which were not 

 inconceivable." And he himself, in 

 this very book, denies not a few pro- 

 positions usually regarded as among 

 the most marked examples of truths 

 whose negations are inconceivable. 

 But occasional failure, he says, is in- 

 cident to all tests. If such failure 

 vitiates "the test of inconceivable- 

 ness," it "must similarly vitiate all 

 tests whatever. We consider an in- 

 ference logically drawn from estab- 

 lished premises to be true. Yet in 

 millions of cases men have been wrong 

 in the inferences they have thought 

 thus drawn. Do we therefore argue 

 that it is absurd to consider an infer- 

 ence true on no other ground than 

 that it is logically drawn from estab- 

 lished premises ? No : we say that 

 though men may have taken for logi- 

 cal inferences inferences that were 

 not logical, there nevertheless are logi- 

 cal inferences, and that we are justi- 

 fied in assuming the truth of what 

 seem to us such, until better instructed. 

 Similarly, though men may have 

 thought some things inconceivable 

 which were not so, there may still be 

 inconceivable things ; and the inabil- 

 ity to conceive the negation of a thing 

 may still be our best warrant for be- 

 lieving it. . . . Though occasionally 

 it may prove an imperfect test, yet, 

 as our most certain beliefs are capable 

 of no better, to doubt any one belief 

 because we have no higher guarantee 

 for it is really to doubt all beliefs." 

 Mr. Spencer's doctrine, therefore, does 

 not erect the curable, but only the 

 incurable limitations of the human 

 concept! ve faculty into laws of the 

 outward universe. 



I 2. The doctrine that "a belief 



which is proved by the inconceivable- 

 ness of its negation to invariably 

 exist is true," Mr. Spencer enforces 

 by two arguments, one of which may 

 be distinguished as positive, and the 

 other as negative. 



The positive argument is, that every 

 such belief represents the aggregate 

 of all past experience. " Conceding 

 the entire truth of " the " position, 

 that during any phase of human pro- 

 gress, the ability or inability to form 

 a specific conception wholly depends 

 on the experiences men have had ; 

 and that, by a widening of their ex- 

 periences, they may, by and by, be 

 enabled to conceive things before in- 

 conceivable to them, it may still be 

 argued that as, at any time, the best 

 warrant men can have for a belief is 

 the perfect agreement of all pre-exist- 

 ing experience in support of it, it 

 follows that, at any time, the incon- 

 ceivableness of its negation is the 

 deepest test any belief admits of. . . . 

 Objective facts are ever impressing 

 themselves upon us ; our experience 

 is a register of these objective facta ; 

 and the inconceivableness of a thing 

 implies that it is wholly at variance 

 with the register. Even were this 

 all, it is not clear how, if every truth 

 is primarily inductive, any better test 

 of truth could exist. But it must be 

 remembered that whilst many of these 

 facts impressing themselves upon us 

 are occasional, whilst others again 

 are very general, some are universal 

 and unchanging. These universal 

 and unchanging facts are, by the 

 hypothesis, certain to establish beliefs 

 of which the negations are incon- 

 ceivable ; whilst the others are not 

 certain to do this ; and if they do, 

 subsequent facts will reverse their 

 action. Hence if, after an immense 

 accumulation of experiences, there 

 remain beliefs of which the negations 

 are still inconceivable, most, if not all 

 of them, must correspond to universal 

 objective facts. If there be . . . cer- 

 tain absolute uniformities in nature ; 

 if these uniformities produce, as they 

 must, absolute uniformities in o\^r es- 



